For Disney, Biggest Payday On Star Wars Won't Be At The Box Office

This weekend, fans around the world will dress up, sit down and settle in to their theater seats for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Though the movie is expected to earn big bucks at the box office--as much as $500 million in its opening weekend--the real moneymaker for
Walt Disney is Star Wars merchandise.

Analysts predict Star Wars merch will generate some $3 billion in sales in 2015, and $5 billion over the next 12 months. Disney kicked up its marketing to a higher level Sept. 4 with Force Friday, an engineered shopping day pegged to the launch of a new line of Star Wars toys. It produced holiday-esque sales that bettered Amazon's Prime Day and neared Black Friday levels, even without any deals, according to Adobe. There were 15 million visits to websites selling Star Wars products between September and November, Adobe says.

"Black Friday sold 46% more units than Force Friday, while Cyber Monday sold only 15% more units," said Joe Martin, senior analyst with Adobe Digital Index. Considering that Lego Star Wars was the third most popular toy bought on Black Friday, it seems clear that Star Wars merchandise is moving millions.

Though 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' may make billions at the box office, the real profit will come from merchandising and licensing. (Image credit: LUCAS FILMS/BAD ROBOT/WALT DISNEY PRODUCTIONS)

It helps that Disney licensees have expanded the range of merchandise to goods traditionally targeted at girls, including cosmetics (a "The Dark Side" mascara by Covergirl) and jewelry (a Stormtrooper necklace at Kay Jewelers). Even fast-fashion mainstay
Forever 21 has a line of Star Wars sweatpants and shirts.

“Since its introduction in the late '70s, Star Wars has been one of the biggest franchises for licensed products in the entertainment business," Marty Brochstein, senior vice president of industry relations and information for the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association, told Forbes. "But to my memory, the level of activity surrounding this film launch has never been seen in Star Wars history or with any other movie franchise.”

Disney has teased a steady stream of content to create an unparalleled hype around the film's launch. Following the September release of merchandise, the trailer was made public Oct. 19 during a broadcast of Monday Night Football on a Disney-owned entity,
ESPN. It prompted nearly 300,000 social mentions globally, according to Adobe. Over the following weeks, Disney released movie posters, an international trailer and an official TV spot, all of which created small spikes in online chatter. This culminated in Black Friday, where product sales bloomed.

"There's such a need to keep a constant drum beat with social media by releasing things--having a high amount of buzz leads to the best chance of success,"said Martin, who tracked some 6 million social mentions of Star Wars. "As far as I know, this is the first time I've seen Disney release merchandise before a movie like this."

Among the brands benefiting:
Electronic Arts, which holds exclusive rights to Star Wars games; LEGO, which makes top-sellers like the LEGO Imperial Destroyer; and Sony, whose PS4 unit has exclusive rights to the Star Wars Battlefront game and console bundles. Gamers are particularly excited about the products: Between October and the game's official November release, Battlefront garnered 550,000 social media mentions, according to Adobe.

Of course, the real winner is Disney. In 2012, Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm, which was owned by Star Wars creator George Lucas. That now sounds like a bargain when one considers the income from licensing alone: Hasbro in 2013 agreed to pay up to $225 million to Disney simply for the rights to manufacture Star Wars-related gear.

Besides licensing goods and selling its own products, Disney is also making money by selling old copies of the original movies on DVD or streaming--all six prior episodes were top sellers during Black Friday. Since the reproduction costs are minimal for Disney, it's all gravy for the Mouse House.

It's clear the hype is not dissipating yet, if social media conversation is any metric to go by. Darth Vader remains the most discussed character, with 590,000 mentions in the last 90 days, just ahead of BB-8's 513,000. With the film due out this weekend, you can be sure viewers will continue to talk about it.

For Disney's fiscal 2015, which ended Oct. 3, it booked revenue of $52.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year. Studio revenue was up 1% year-over-year, while consumer products revenue surged 13% between 2014 and 2015, thanks in part to the ongoing success of Frozen.